Ptroinks

Absolutely!!! The best tip I would give anyone struggling with refueling, and the one thing that would have saved me a lot of frustration and loud swearing, had I done it sooner! It does take a LOT of practice to be able to refuel, as in real life, but I still feel that the tanker AI/boom operator AI still needs a lot of work!

Lots of tips in this thread: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=64817

Not an accident, but a very close call!

I have also seen this...

Some of my biggest mistakes were looking at the wrong places while refueling. Don't use your HUD for anything at all. In fact, I would switch the IFCC off just to get rid of it (for refueling practice). Use your eyes to judge airspeed (and vertical speed) relative to the tanker. Secondly, DON'T look at the end of the refueling boom! Keep your eyes on the colored part, so you can always see if you need to accelerate or slow down. This way, you also have a nice view of the tanker, so you can see if you're drifting left or right. Remember to click your nose wheel steering button when you disconnect, so the refueling port will be able to reconnect to the boom. As skypirate said, try to anticipate! Or, learn to anticipate. When you put your throttle forward, the aircraft won't respond immediately, so you have to wait for the response of your inputs, and when you accelerate, the aircraft will pitch up slightly, and (obviously) pitch down when you slow down.

"If you can't fix it with Gaffa tape, you haven't used enough!"

It all depends on how close the threats are to my primary target(s) and the weapons I have available. If there's a Tunguska close to the target and I have just a few mavericks (or none) left, I would either look for it or send my wingman to deal with him. If there are several Shilkas and/or SA-13s around, I would climb above their WEZ and then engage my targets. Again, it depends on the weapons I have. It's pretty hard to find the SAM/AAA threats, though. the JTAC only says something like "SA-13, 3 miles north-east", which isn't very usable information to try to find it.

Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/user/wagmatt#p/u/6/zdNxRZihcNM

:doh:

After I've contacted JTAC and have recieved the target data, is it possible to get my wingmen to attack the target? When I open the radio menu, the only options I have, are JTAC messages. In order to talk to my wingmen, I have to "check out" first, and then my wingman radio commands are available. Am I doing something wrong?

Very OT, but "Jetstream" immediately made me think of the PMDG J-41 I used to fly in FSX :). Nice aircraft, but very difficult to fly when being used to Boeing 737s!

I just had an MFCD die on me. In the past, there have been multiple CADC and HUD failures, and none of them have been related to enemy fire (it has happened before I arrived where the bad guys were). It's extremely annoying, to say the least! ED could at least give us the choice of having random failures in the sim or not.

Royal Norwegian Air Force! REAL nap-of-the-earth :D!

Just what I was thinking! Extremely creepy!

That's an A340, isn't it?

Heeey! My very first snipe :D!

...or just set the flight to "takeoff from runway"...

I don't fly much with friendly AI since I don't like it, but when designing and testing missions, I have seen a lot of strange jettisons. I guess it's just another part of the AI that needs fixing...

I'm still wondering about that cryptic message from the tanker saying "proceed to pre-contact at xxx". The manual doesn't say anything about it.

If you start your run by diving to gain speed, and then pitch up to loft the bomb when you're at max speed (indicated by the striped pointer on the airspeed indicator), it would work better.

Wow! I still have a long way to go before I can refuel without disconnects, but being able to follow a tanker in a turn while connected seems extremely difficult! At least the turns the tanker makes in DCS. As was mentioned above, the Falcon 4 tanker made a very gentle turn, so that would be easier.

I would advise anyone who's still struggling with their refuelings to just switch the HUD off! Yes, off! That was the ONE thing that did it for me. Well, not switching it off, but keeping my eyes on the tanker and the boom, and not watching my airspeed and horizon on the HUD. It's surprising how fast you learn how to "feel" where you are in relation to the tanker once you get your eyes outside of the cockpit! And when you look at the boom, look at the green part (might seem obvious, but my eyes had a tendency to want to look at the end of the boom where it connects to the A-10. Looking at the colored part lets you know if you need to accelerate/decelerate, and you have a perfect view of the rest of the tanker so you can see if you're drifting left/right. Lots of people have said it before me, and I'll say it again: TRIM! And do it before you're connecting to the tanker!

I did it :joystick: !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! I did it !!!! YEEEEAAHHH!!!! I actually can't believe I managed to refuel! It was agony, and the drunken boom operator tried his best to sabotage my attempts (there were some disconnects), but I did it!!! Damn, I'm proud :)! In all my flightsimming years, I have always considered refueling to be the mark of a good pilot, and now I can breathe easy! I hope someone can take a look at the track file. I know the boom operator and tanker AI still needs a lot of work, but still, some of the disconnects I had, were strange. Were they all just me, or can I blame all of them on the AI? ...and yes, I'm so proud I want everyone to look at my very FIRST refueling :D... refueling.trk

Ahh! Just what I needed!

You're kidding, right?